On numerous occasions police officers need to determine rapidly whether or not suspected materials contain drugs and thus quickly establish probable cause. A rapid and facile test kit can help to detect the presence of the drug or alternatively to determine whether a tested sample definitely is a drug.
The quickest process known today for drug detection is a color test in which the response of the drug to a specific reagent makes it possible to assign the drug to one or more classes.
Chemical spot test kits have been commercially developed in order to obtain sufficient evidence to detain a drug peddler or drug user. Those kits are used today for the detection of narcotics and drugs of abuse by many law enforcement agencies.
The commercial test kits for the identification of drugs containing methylenedioxyphenyl group such as N-methyl-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (i.e., MDMA or ‘ECSTASY’); 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (i.e., MDA), 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine (i.e., MDEA); 3-methoxy-4,5-methylenedioxyamphetamine (i.e., MMDA); N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butaneamine (i.e., MBDB); or 3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl-2-(N-ethyl)butaneamine (i.e., MD-2-EB) are based on the famous Marquis sulfuric acid—formaldehyde reagent which gives a purple/black or blue/black color (ODV, Inc, NIK, Armour Holding Inc.). This kit, based on sulfuric acid-formaldehyde, is sold also through the Internet for the detection of “Ecstasy”, becoming a serious problem in Europe and North America. The kits are sold by Green Party Drugs Group in the UK (E-Z Test™) and by US based Dancesafe organization (http://www.ecstasy.org).
Clark (“Isolation and Identification of Drugs” Pharmaceutical Press, 1986) lists tens of drugs that respond in the same way or similar way to Marquis reagent to MDMA type compound. Furthermore, according to Clark, Marquis reagent gives other color reaction with hundreds of drugs. The combination of concentrated sulfuric acid and formaldehyde is a known color reagent (i.e., Le—Rozen test) used for general detection of organic molecules containing aromatic rings (Feigel, F., Spot Tests in Organic Analysis, p. 137, 1966).
Due to low specificity of this reagent, one knows it is negative for Ecstasy wherein it does not turn to a purple/black or blue-black or black color by applying the color reaction.
It is thus apparent that aforementioned single color-producing reagent cannot serve usefully as a field-testing kit for the detection of drugs containing methylenedioxyphenyl group in field conditions, because of the possibility of giving false positive color reactions with so many other substances.
Therefore, when a possible positive color reaction is obtained by the Marquis test, user is advised to proceed to a color test for secondary amine (such as Simon Reagent) for possible presence of Ecstasy, which comprises a secondary amine group. It is thus apparent that a better and more specific reagent should be a color reaction based on the specific reaction of methylenedioxyphenyl group. An early study (M. Beroza, Identification of 3,4-Methylenedioxyphenyl Synergists by Thin-Layer Chromatography, Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Vol. 11, No. 1, p. 51, 1963) indicates that compounds comprising said methylenedioxyphenyl group could be detected by the color developed following reaction with sulfuric acid and chromotropic acid, although MDMA and related drugs were not examined at that study. The color reagent, according to Beroza, is composed of 60% sulfuiric acid and 40% water containing chromotropic acid. The color reagent is used for detection of synergists of insecticides by thin layer chromatography (TLC). However, aforementioned TLC apparatus is heated for 30 min at 105° C. This reagent thus cannot be applied to field-testing of drugs.
A recent method for color reaction of methylendioxyphenyl compounds based on sulfuric acid—chromotropic acid was described by Hideyuki Yamada et al. (Highly Specific and Convenient Color Reaction for Methylenedioxymethamphetamine and Related Drugs Using Chromotropic Acid. Application as a Drug Screening Test, Journal of Health Science, 45(6), pp. 303-308, 1999). In this article the authors described a process for the detection of MDMA and related compounds. The authors stated, “MDMAs did not exhibit any color on adding sulfuric acid . . . namely, if the sample produces a color on adding sulfuric acid alone, it is not an MDMA” (p. 308). The authors also appended a list of drugs that give a color reaction with sulfuric acid—chromotropic acid reagent.
The deficiencies of these tests have led the inventor to develop a chromotropic acid free reagent, specific for phenethylamine derivatives (i.e., amphetamines) drugs, comprising methylenedioxyphenyl group, wherein said reagent having the means to screen out false positive results. This specific reagent allows surprisingly an error-free positive detection of said methylendioxyphenyl amphetamine compounds.